The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - PChttps://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/atom.aspxCommunity Server2013-09-19T10:01:00ZA Hidden Mystery Worth Uncovering/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2014/10/02/the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-game-informer-review.aspx2014-10-02T18:15:00Z2014-10-02T18:15:00Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/review-610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>After releasing the pulpy sci-fi shooter Bulletstorm, the three founders of People Can Fly took a leap of faith and founded a new studio called The Astronauts. For the past couple of years, this indie team has been working on a moody adventure game called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Even though this atmospheric title uses a first-person perspective, it couldn&rsquo;t be more different from its founders&rsquo; pedigree of relentlessly intense shooters. Thankfully, The Astronaut&rsquo;s first project is as refreshing as it is surprising. </p>
<p>Players dive into the role of a supernatural investigator named Paul Prospero who was summoned to the rural county of Red Creek Valley after reading a letter from a boy named Ethan Carter. Ethan seems like a well-meaning kid, but he has an unusual gift that allows him to see the dark realities others cannot. After Ethan accidentally opens a door into a separate dimension, he unleashes a creature called the Sleeper, who possesses his family and turns them against each other. As Paul wanders through Red Creek Valley&rsquo;s twilight-lit hills, he stumbles across the aftermath of this event and pieces together a series of murders to discover Ethan&rsquo;s fate. A chain of notes and short stories written by Ethan are scattered across the environment and contribute to the unsettling atmosphere. The story is so compelling that I found it hard to put the game down until I&rsquo;d pieced together the final mystery and discovered the delightful twist ending. </p>
<p>Unlike traditional adventure games, you don&rsquo;t run across a series of village inhabitants or acquire a laundry list of strange gadgets that let you unlock new areas. Instead, most of Red Creek Valley is open to explore from the outset, and while the tale generally funnels you in the right direction, it&rsquo;s still easy to overlook your next destination and get lost wandering in the forest until the suspense begins to dull. A map or some kind of destination compass would have gone a long way toward smoothing out the pacing.</p>
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<p>If you&rsquo;re willing to put up with the loosely structured gameplay, Ethan Carter present a series of captivating mysteries. All of Paul&rsquo;s investigations begin when he finds the body of one of Ethan&rsquo;s relatives. Cautious investigators will enjoy scouring each crime scene for clues, such as a bloody rock that could have been used as a weapon, or a sharp tool used to cut the power to an elevator, or severed ropes that look like they had been used to tie someone to a pair of train tracks. These objects usually aren&rsquo;t too difficult to find thanks to Paul&rsquo;s psychic abilities, which highlight points of interest within the environment. Once all of an investigation&rsquo;s clues have been found, Paul can commune with the dead and receive a series of snapshots from the event. For me, the most rewarding element was piecing these snapshots together into a logical sequence that ultimately rewards you with a full account of how each victim died &ndash; and a cryptic vision that points you one step closer to finding Ethan. </p>
<p>Outside of these investigations, a few odd tasks give you additional reasons to explore Red Creek Valley. During one moment of the game, I was chasing a mysterious figure through the forest. During another, I stepped through a series of portals that had me teleporting across a derelict mansion in order to find its hidden room. While these sequences are rarely challenging, they do ensure that you never know what to expect next. </p>
<p>While sections of The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter might hang up players who aren&rsquo;t patient enough to scrub its environments for clues or destination markers, the experience rewards those who enjoy soaking in atmosphere and exploring every nook and cranny. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter won&rsquo;t challenge your brain like it will challenge your daring, but it offers up plenty of thrills and tells a crafty story that fans of dark fantasy and pulp horror won&rsquo;t want to miss.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=7006737" width="1" height="1">GIBenhttps://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIBen/default.aspxThirteen Minutes Of Gorgeous Gameplay/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2014/08/21/see-thirteen-minutes-of-gorgeous-gameplay-from-the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter.aspx2014-08-21T19:19:30Z2014-08-21T19:19:30Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/TVoECWkTr-610.jpg" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p>
<p>The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was just announced for PlayStation 4 last week at Gamescom, and if that was your first look at The Astronauts first game, you&rsquo;re in for a treat. The small team of eight is using a new <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2013/09/19/the-astronauts-release-first-screens-from-upcoming-horror-game.aspx">photgrammetry approach to visuals</a>, which enables more realistic environments.</p>
<p>The video below is a 13-minute walkthrough narrated by Adrian Chmielarz (formerly of People Can Fly). The game puts players in the shoes of occult detective Paul Prospero, who is on the hunt for a boy who disappeared following a murder.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2013/09/19/the-astronauts-release-first-screens-from-upcoming-horror-game.aspx">The Vanishing of Ethan Carter</a> will be out for PC on September 25. The PlayStation 4 version is due next year.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=6954144" width="1" height="1">GIMikehttps://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIMike/default.aspxThis Beautiful New Trailer Has A Grim Surprise/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2014/06/05/this-beautiful-new-trailer-has-a-grim-surprise.aspx2014-06-06T01:05:00Z2014-06-06T01:05:00Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/trailer/ethancartertrailer610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>The Astronauts&#39; atmospheric The Vanishing of Ethan Carter remains cloaked in mystery, but this new trailer holds a shocking ending.</p>
<p>A bulk of this clip, which is culled from the PC game, showcases the game&#39;s stunningly gorgeous environments &ndash; until the end. We&#39;ll let you watch for yourself, but it does add some grim intrigue to the game&#39;s events.</p>
<p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=6834696" width="1" height="1">GIMatthttps://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIMatt/default.aspxThe Astronauts Give A New Look At The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter (In GIF Form)/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2013/12/17/the-astronauts-give-a-new-look-at-the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-in-gif-form.aspx2013-12-17T15:39:00Z2013-12-17T15:39:00Z<p><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/gifs/VanishingEthanCarterGifs-610.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>No matter how you pronounce it (hard &ldquo;g&rdquo;), animated gifs have become a popular vehicle for promoting games. The Astronauts is getting in on the fun with a batch of the short animated clips highlighting three different moments in the upcoming The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.</p>
<p>Each of these was captured in-game using PC and Gamepad. The first shows off The Astronauts photogrammetric technology, something the team will be talking more about in the new year. Essentially, it allows developers to get to higher quality assets faster.</p>
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<p>The second clip shows off the game&rsquo;s protagonist, Paul Prospero (if that surname doesn&rsquo;t ring a bell, look up Shakespeare&rsquo;s The Tempest). Prospero witnesses a supernatural happening in the gif below.</p>
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<p>The final clip shows a cemetery from later in the game. According to The Astronauts, the tombs and roots are some of the elements that were made using the photogrammetry technique.</p>
<p><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/gifs/ethan_carter_cemetery.gif" alt="" /></p>
<p>You can read more about The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in a <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2013/09/19/the-astronauts-release-first-screens-from-upcoming-horror-game.aspx">recent preview</a>. The title will be available in 2014 on PC.&nbsp;</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=6471822" width="1" height="1">GIMikehttps://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIMike/default.aspxThe Astronauts Release First Screens From Upcoming Horror Game/games/the_vanishing_of_ethan_carter/b/pc/archive/2013/09/19/the-astronauts-release-first-screens-from-upcoming-horror-game.aspx2013-09-19T15:01:00Z2013-09-19T15:01:00Z<p><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/theastronauts/ethancarter/ethan0919-610.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>Adrian Chmielarz&nbsp;&nbsp;knows his way around action, having worked on high-octane games like Bulletstorm and Painkiller with his former studio People Can Fly. Chmielarz left the studio last year to form The Astronauts, and now we&#39;ve got the first in-game screens from their new game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.</p>
<p>You play as an occult detective named Paul Prospero, who&#39;s been contacted by a boy in trouble named Ethan Carter. Prospero heads to Red Creek Valley to dig into the mystery, and he learns that the disappearance may not be an isolated occurrence. The game takes place via a first-person viewpoint, but players won&#39;t be solving the case while firing at bad guys. There&#39;s actually no combat at all within the game. Instead, players will have to use Prospero&#39;s supernatural instincts to discover clues and propel the story along.</p>
<p>Chmielarz says he wants to tell a story for adults &ndash; he characterizes <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/02/06/ex-people-can-fly-developers-unveil-the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter.aspx" title="The Vanishing of Ethan Carter">The Vanishing of Ethan Carter</a> as &quot;weird fiction&quot; &ndash; which means the focus is on atmosphere, mood, and characterization. &quot;If our game leaves any scars, you won&rsquo;t be able to see them,&quot;&nbsp;Chmielarz says. &quot;Also, we want gamers to experience the story of Paul and Ethan at their own pace, and without the need for sedatives. It&rsquo;s less about pure terror and more about clammy unease.&quot;</p>
<p>The screens in the gallery below show what the game looks like. Chmielarz says the team isn&#39;t planning on having any cutscenes to move the story along, so what you see is what&#39;s there. It&#39;s currently in development for PC, but the team hopes to have the game on next-gen consoles at some point as well.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="https://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=4565616" width="1" height="1">GIJeffhttps://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIJeff/default.aspx